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CheshireKitty
said...

KTG: If it was anyplace else - say at Columbia or even NYU, I would have no argument. The institutions of higher education or research hospitals should provide low-cost housing if they are only going to pay their researchers or Fellows so much. The difference is RI is not the Upper West Side or the Bronx. RI is a tiny sliver that was supposed to duplicate or achieve the diversity of the City - the way the City should be, instead of fragmented or piecemeal neighborhoods according to income level. The thought was that would achieve more vibrancy - exactly why people like NY. That's why people flee the 'burbs - since they're monotonous. The same with the so-called "inner city" - why the Village was always a magnet. You can meet different people of all socio-economic types - that's what makes NY so great.

If a mini-NY was going to be duplicated or created in miniature on RI, instead of another bland luxury housing development on the one hand or simply housing on the other, then the mix you may find in the Village had to be mandated. RI was an artificially created "mix" - so it would be interesting and vibrant. Of course, you do not have the myriad businesses that you might actually have in a real neighborhood such as the Village - you don't have the population density to support them. But the idea was to have a mix. And the mix was there @ Northtown - especially at RL. RL is definitely an upbeat place (for all its purported problems). Probably the windows in the hallways have something to do with it, and the interesting apartment layouts.

ST though was really antithetical to the ethos of RI. Not that there's anything wrong with providing low-cost housing for researchers - but it just shouldn't have been slapped down on RI, as a substitute for the low-cost housing component of the mix. It really did take away something from RI. ST has a "scrubbed" look. OK - some of it is nice, but nice in the sense that Disneyworld is nice: Not real.

It was a flaw in the GDP or whatever document allowed low-cost hospital housing to sub for low-cost housing. The interest or vibrancy of NT never did extend to ST. Do you really think ST is pedestrian friendly - the way NT is? It's a city on a hill. I'm happy C-T will be more accessible - that's the way ST should have been built - with paths circulating throughout the property.

There's no downside for the hospitals, of course. The downside was for the RI concept - which was supposed to be sort of an idealized mini-city.

You also saw the powers-that-be turn their backs on affordable housing - proclaim the hospital housing as the affordable housing component and that way they're off the hook as to providing affordable housing.

I won't go on and on; but what do you have now: A mad scramble by the de Blasio administration and the Cuomo administration to play catch-up. They can see that neighborhoods are getting busted by gentrification. And the new rich folks moving in are pretty transitory - they may be here today or off to some gleaming city on another continent tomorrow. The State and City also loses labor each time a worker moves out. The rich folks aren't going to take many City jobs, or work in construction or many categories of service jobs. So who will do this work if the workers leave?

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